PoP Book 06.2s MidRes - Flipbook - Page 24
Almost Nothing
Ian Bogost has a tedious shopping trip I’m going to borrow.19 He’s at the
mall, on a Saturday morning, tugging his four-year-old daughter along
by the hand. Because she’s dragging a little, he looks down and sees she’s
deeply immersed in a little ritual you’ll recognise. It’s the one called ‘step
on a crack, break your mother’s back’ — as played on a million paved
floors across time and space. Your feet mustn’t touch the cracks or the
bad-luck-devils will burst up through and get you.
1.15
This version of the game, though, adds an important dimension. Instead
of the player being under her own steam, deciding her own route across
the tiles, she’s being pulled along like she’s on a theme park ride. Her dad
is dictating pace and direction, so she’s had to surrender all control and
make much snappier, kinetic decisions than she would have on her own.
Her feet and the floor are all she’s focused on, and the result is a challenging
and highly rewarding little game. It’s barely visible but mentally nourishing,
and created out of almost nothing. As well as transforming a dull trudge
round the shops into something way more interesting, something concentrated into a close magic circle around her mind; it’s also opened her
up to a much bigger experience.
Importantly, this little moment also undermines a widely held but wrongheaded idea. Far from being the carefree trivial distraction you might
think, this kind of play requires paying much greater attention than usual.
SA
MP
LE
MP
SA MP
A
LE S
MP LE S
SA MP LE
A
LE S MP LE
MP LE SA MP
SA MP LE SA MP
A
A
LE S MP E S
L
MP LE SA MP LE S
SA MP LE SA MP E
L
A
A
LE S AMP LE S MP LE
A
LE S MP LE S MP
MP LE SA MP E SA
Click
to buy
in full!
But that attention pays huge dividends, in that the simplest of actions,
like walking across a shopping precinct, ends up revealing hidden details
to the player which would normally slip by unseen.
What is Play? / Almost Nothing
28
